This application is the US national phase of PCT application PCT/EP01/12890 filed Nov. 8, 2001 with a claim to the priority of German patent application 10059212.0 itself filed Nov. 29, 2000.
The invention relates to a shower-head holder with a bracket mounted on a building wall or a wall rod and on which a holder body is pivotal about an axis, the holder body having at least one friction surface that is pressed by an adjustable spring element against at least one stationary surface on the bracket.
A shower-head holder of this type is known from European patent document EP 0,529,347. In this holder the bracket is fixed directly to a building wall. In addition it is however also known to mount the bracket at a spacing from the wall on a wall rod such that the bracket can be slid along the wall rod and arrested at any desired position. This holder has however only a relatively small friction surface so that due to low friction only a reduced braking effect is achieved and as a result the shower head is provided close to the pivot axis so that the brake effect is sufficient to hold the shower in the various pivoted positions.
It is an object of the invention to provide a showerhead holder with a relatively long pivotal holder that ensures a sure holding of the shower head in the various pivoted positions for a long service life.
This object is achieved in that the axis is fixed on the bracket, the holder has a sleeve surrounding the axis, and a plate-type brake joins the holder to the bracket.
With these features, thanks to the good braking effect the holder can be provided with a long pivot arm. The proposed brake is thus low in friction and very compact and small so that the outside measurements of the device and the design constraints of a plumbing fixture can be respected.
In a further embodiment of the invention the braking effect in the installed shower-head holder can be set and/or adjusted by an externally accessible adjustment mechanism. Preferably the braking effect is set on manufacture to a predetermined braking torque. After some time when the parts have worked in or worn, a simple resetting of the adjustment mechanism can compensate out this problem so that the shower-head holder will hold in any pivotal position but can still be easily moved by the user by hand to any desired pivotal position.